An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (17 page)

* * *
 

Tony found himself awakening much later than his norm
, once again on the couch
.
His body crawled and itched like his poor days back in college
—
sleeping in his clothes, no shower,
stubble on his face, too much stress
.
He walked back into his bedroom
.

His bedding was filled with glass fragments from the antique mirror which
once
had
hung on the
nearby
wall
.
Smashed splinters of the
chest of drawers lay sprawled about the floor,
the
jewelry box and what had been its contents spread all over the room
.

“Bloody Metros
,” muttered Tony. “
I’ll bet they just enjoyed the hell out of this
.”

Cin padded behind him, sniffing only at the odd bit of fluff strewn about the floor
.
Tony trundled into the bathroom to find
, placed neatly
on a clear spot on the bathroom vanity, the friendship ring he
’d
given
Carmine
. The once meaningful trinket now
sat just slightly pushed into a small pile of
human excrement
.
Obviously the Metros made deliveries as well as pickups
.
Carmine’s message didn’t need a solido sign.

“It figures
she’d
think up something so tasteless,” Tony said,
using some toilet paper to brush t
he entire mass, ring and all, into the toilet
.
That part of his life disappeared with a simple flush
.

He needed
nearly three hours to make some semblance of order out of the chaos of his home, all the while bantering back and forth with himself
and the kitten, as the mood suited him
.

“I don’t know why I bother
.
They’re
st
ill going to take my home away.

“But then I guess I still
need
to have somewhere to stay.

“How could they be so call
o
us?

“The solido of mother, ruined
…

“Cin, don’t play with the glass
!

“What could they p
ossibly
have
been looking for
in
there?
”

Each broken item he swept into the garbage set the muscles in his jaw dancing to a dark tune
.
With ever
y
thing he placed back into its proper place his fists clenched
tighter
.

“Radio,
n
ews.”

“…dder news, four bombs detonated on the
Colonization Unlimited
Building
in downtown today
.
Seventy-three confirmed dead and one hundred eighty-six others injured
.

“Police refuse to speculate if this bombing had anything to do with
recent
GAM actions
.
Chief Adams, is this related to the other bombings?”

“How can I tell
?
We haven’t had any time to run tests, talk to informants, or even get their call to confirm it.
”

“So you have no ideas?”

“Sure we have ideas, you moron
.
But
we aren’t
stupid enough to give them out where anyone can hear
—
”

Action crystallized within
Tony
as he
stalked out of his home, leaving Cin loose inside.

For the first time in a dozen months, the clouds
above
parted and allowed in the silvery light of the moon
.
This omen lightened Tony’s mood slightly
but didn’t stop his flight
.
He jumped onto the first lift-bus that showed up at his condo’s platform
.
By chance it happened to be the same one he usually took down to the Rose Quarter
.
Out of sheer habit he exited the bus near the Wilted Rose
.
But this time the scenery took on a whole new meaning.

In the past he
unconsciously
lorded over everyone in this slum
.
Now h
e
clung
just a precarious
rung
above
the
people here
.
A male prostitute flipped his long hair back and batted his brightly painted eyes
.
A street performer played his antique guitar to the tune of
“
Stairway to Heaven
”
and nodded to each person passing
.
Three beggars sat patiently holding signs proclaiming their inability to find work and starving families
.
Three hucksters tried to sell him imitation Rolex watches, guaranteed-not-to-break condoms, and bed-space in a local abandoned warehouse
.
Two recycled food vendors competed with one another for the few credits which could be made on that end of the street
just outside the zone patrolled strongly by the Metros
.
  

The people and class changed as he got closer to the Rose
.
The hookers were cleaner and prettier
, t
he merchandise a bit more upscale
—
or
at least
better disguised knock-offs
.
And Jock stood as the usual intimidating doorman for the Wilted Rose
.

“Howdy, Jock,” Tony said, as he saw
that one
friendly face
.
A massive alloy arm came out and barred his way into the club
.

“Sir, I’m afraid I have special orders dealing with you
.
You are not allowed to enter
.
The staff has reports of you bothering Miss Carmine.”

“Excuse me, Jock
?
How long have I been a patron here?”

“I have my order
s
, sir.”

“Has everyone gone mad
?
I’m not a criminal
!
I’m an ordinary guy
.”
A tiny hesitation crossed Jock’s face with the barest humanity flickering to life
, and Tony pounced on the opening
.
“Why are they doing this, Jock?”

Jock waved
a few
other patrons into the club
, and then
looked around surreptitiously before lowering his voice by at least half
.

“Sir, had it been anyone else, I wouldn’t have given it another thought
.
But
you’ve
been good to me with a kind word and a smile
.
It didn’t seem to matter to you that I was a Nil.”

“Why should it?”

“It shouldn’t
, but stop
sidetracking me
.
I don’t know all the details, but what I see happening to you has all the earmarks of a top level
megacorp
hose job.

“Miss Carmine showed up at the club yesterday
and
talked to the boss
.
She passed him a stack of bills that even I couldn’t tear in half
.”
Jock
lifted a velvet rope and
passed another
high class
couple in
to the loud venue
.
“About ten minutes later I got my orders to keep you out
.
You add it up, sir.”

“Where would Carmine get that kind of money?”

“That’s what I mean,
s
ir
.
Someone
’
s paying to put you down and that usually means the resources of a corp
.
I shouldn’t say any more
.
I’ve probably said too much already.”

“
OK
, Jock, I’ve got just one more question for you, please
.
Do you know how to get in touch with the GAM?”

“S
ir
?
!
”

“Sorry, I just thought you might
know
.”

“They
’
re violent
.
I don’t want any part of that
.”
Tony had seen Jock tear off the arm of one man for not responding to a less than subtle hint to leave a lady alone
,
and shoot another through the neck when
the
welf
pulled a stun grenade
.
Violent or no, Jock didn’t know.
Unfortunately.

“Jock,
you’ve
been a true friend
.
And for that
I’ll
always be grateful
.
I may look you up after I get myself settled.”

“I’d like that, sir
.”

“You can knock off that ‘sir.’
I’m
just
plain
Tony
now
.”

“
OK
, Tony
.”

Tony didn’t offer him
any money
.
What Jock had done was for friendship
,
and paying him
would’ve
convinced Jock that Tony was just another one of the masses
—
out for himself only
.
Tony knew it and Jock knew it
.
They parted honorable men, as only honorable men know how.

* * *
 

She knew the
disposable percomm
call would be traced
.
The
Green Action Militia
had learned from an ex-Metro
, one of their own now,
that it took one minute, fourteen seconds to trace such a call under the best of circumstances
.
Thus the GAM
kept all calls under forty seconds and delivered the
ir message
crystal to a different person every time.

“This is the GAM
,” she stated succinctly
.
“
If you want to hear our statement, you will retrieve the recording crystal from the wom
e
n’s restroom, fourth stall from the end
,
on your third floor
.
You have until someone flushes.”

Sometimes to mix things up they called anonymous tip hotlines, and once a media lawyer
.
The delivery location changed as well
.
Sometimes it arrived in place of the morning paper
,
and other
times
it
might
steer a person through seven levels of scavenger hunt
.

They used only standard Fuji commercial recording crystals from a different supplier each time, picking a random device from each lot
.
Sonya purposely left her right pinky fingerprint on each crystal so they knew exactly who
m
they were dealing with
.
As no one had a
name to
match to that print
or her
epithelial
DNA
—
except on other crystals
—
she
stayed
as safe as any other Nil.

Sonya
dropped the ring
comm
to the ground and crushed it with her heel
.
To make certain
,
she stomped it three more times
.
She moved immediately to the edge of the
not
-
yet
-
complete level
144
TriMet platform in downtown Corva
l
lis
.
For security
’s
sake she needed to be at least a full
600
meter
s from this place in under a minute, the top response
time
of even Interpol.